(Huffington Post) A group of civilly-disobedient hemp farmers and business leaders were arrested Tuesday morning while digging up the lawn to plant industrial hemp seeds at the headquarters of the Drug Enforcement Administration.
David Bronner, the president of Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soaps, a more than 60-year-old company that does tens of millions of dollars of business annually, was among those arrested.
Bronner buys the hemp used in his soaps from Canadian farmers. He was arrested outside the DEA museum, which shares space with the headquarters.
“Our kids are going to come to this museum and say, ‘My God. Your generation was crazy. What the hell is wrong with you people?'” he said as Arlington County Police handcuffed him and walked him to a waiting car.
Wayne Hauge and Will Allen, farmers from North Dakota and Vermont respectively, brought shovels and seeds to the protest, where they were joined by representatives of Vote Hemp, which advocates for federal legislation that would allow states to craft their own hemp policies.
Currently [eight nine] states — Hawaii, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Montana, North Dakota, [Oregon,] Vermont, and West Virginia — allow industrial hemp production or research, but federal law, which requires nearly-impossible-to-obtain-permits to grow hemp, trumps those state laws. A bill introduced by Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) and Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) would allow states to craft their own policies.
Of all the insanities in the War on (Certain American Citizens Using Non-Pharmaceutical, Non-Alcoholic, Tobacco-Free) Drugs, the ban on industrial hemp is the looniest. We have the Drug Enforcement Administration enforcing a ban on something that is not a drug! They’ll tell you that by strict interpretation of the law, hemp does contain THC, so it has to be banned, even though the THC contained in hemp is so minute that you could literally burn a field of the stuff and not catch the slightest of buzzes.
They’ll tell you that if hemp were legal, growers of illicit high-THC pot would hide their crops in-between the rows of hemp. Any farmer can tell you that what you’d get is cross-pollination; the hemp would ruin the high of the pot and the pot would ruin the strength of the hemp.
Then they’ll tell you that if hemp were legal, law enforcement would be burdened trying to determine which fields were hemp and which were pot. This doesn’t seem to be a problem for the police in China, Australia, Canada, or most of Europe, however, as they seem to be able to tell the difference between a tall, reedy hemp plant and a short bushy pot plant without much difficulty. Maybe our American cops are just too stupid to handle basic botany.
The ban on hemp remains for two reasons. One is to protect the entrenched business interests that would stand to lose market share to legal hemp crops. Hemp can produce anything you can make from a tree or a barrel of oil, and do it cheaper, make it better, and cause less environmental damage along the way. Hemp paper resists oxidation far better than wood paper. Hemp pressboards are as strong as steel and save our forests. Hemp seed oil has the highest energy value of any seed oil crop – all current diesel engines can run on hempseed oil with no modifications required. Hemp seed is one of nature’s highest protein foods and a source of important anti-oxidants. Hemp cloth is impervious to mildew, repels water, and holds heat better, and requires no pesticides. Can you begin to imagine all the companies that would lose money if forced to compete fairly with hemp?
And the second reason is psychological. If hemp is legal, cannabis is just a plant. It’s a subtle thing, but under the current framework, the government can tell us cannabis is an evil drug. But if hemp is legal, then sometimes cannabis is an evil drug and sometimes it is just a plant. Once cannabis is sometimes just a plant, it is harder to scare people into thinking it can be evil.
We are approaching the 400th anniversary of the first colonial hemp plantations in North America. Hemp is our American heritage – this country exists because of hemp and our entire history is infused with its cultivation and use. The forces that combined to ban hemp in the 20th Century have stolen our very birthright and declared nature itself to be illegal.
The most ironic part of your blatantly antagonistic attitude, Stoney, is that you don’t even have your facts right. The gentlemen that were arrested were not arrested for non-compliance and did not set the hemp movement back 10 years. If you had bothered to actually read the body of the article, and not just skim it, you would know that they “planted” roasted crushed hemp seeds that were purchased for consumption. How on earth, or any place in the universe for that matter, would a seed that has been cooked and crushed for consumption be able to grow through the winter, as you said, or any other season?
The entire proceeding was to draw attention the insanity that hemp is still bundled with marijuana. Continue to spew your vitriolic hate. One day the cosmic scales will balance and antagonistic mealy mouthed prohibitionists will either see the “light” or be washed away in the inundation of caring about people’s basic human right for choice .
Teach Jury Nullification to any and all who may one day sit on a jury. Fastest way to change the situation is simple, Jury Nullification, if we don’t convict our peers of this unjust cannabis law the government can do nothing about it.
Don’t forget to plant your seeds.
I don’t see anywhere in the body of the article above anything about the patriots planting ” roasted hemp seed snacks” as you claim ..The article above states that they were QUOTE ” digging up the lawn to plant industrial hemp seeds at the headquarters of the Drug Enforcement Administration.” I didn’t see any recipies attached
Industrial hemp seeds, unless specified as non viable are, by default VIABLE.. aka germanatable ..
suggestion: before you accuse people of skimming, maybe become familiar with the passages you claim to have superior insight into. Messing up something like that is not” ironic ” , it’s ” moronic ”
As long as hemp is a botanical aspect of Cannabis sativa L – & like marijuana. hemp is and will will remain a controlled substance, under the direct supervision of the DEA.. thats why the officer who first approached the patriots asked ” DO YOU HAVE A PERMIT? ” and he wasn;t refering to a landscaping certificate
Thanks to hemp watchers such as what you demonstrated here I upgrade the POd’ six packers with chrome shovels setting the hemp movement back… 11 years.
Hemp Farmers Arrested Planting Hemp at DEA Headquarters
Twenty million Americans have been deprived of their liberty and property for violating the marijuana laws.
Criminal laws affect individual rights.
Marijuana is property. The right to acquire and possess property is a fundamental right.It is stated and probably in every state constitution.
Liberty is a fundamental right. A full custodial arrest is a severe intrusion on an individual’s liberty.
“‘Where there is a significant encroachment upon personal liberty, the State may prevail only upon showing a subordinating interest which is compelling.’” Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479, 497, 85 S. Ct. 1678 (1965); Bates v. Little Rock, 361 U.S. 516, 524, 80 S. Ct. 412,417 (1960); Roe v Wade, 410 U.S. 113, 155, 93 S.Ct 705, 35 (1973); Ravin v. State of Alaska, 537 P. 2d 494, 497 (1975).
So why are marijuana laws reviewed by rational review by the judiciary?
So this incident is posted on youtube- so what- ?
maybe a million hippies were impressed
but the DEA were not impressed.
thats the cultural followup to civil disobedience?
counting hits to yesterdays news on Youtube?
thats all the mighty stoner army can do is tune in & turn on ?
a million strong puffed up self glory projections who just want to watch others perform pointless symbolic actions on TV
from the sidelines, bong in hand. the only real part was the handcuffs – just to be charged with the epoch of freedom defining radical social act of….. trespassing..
unauthorized corporate landscaping..
Che Guevera Lawn Services
good one eco geniuses..I can hear the ripple of old glory waving defiance in the winds of change from here
whew! No wonder the US government won’t answer your emails..
because the great American
420 resistance movement
is just so many squirrels
scampering across the roof.
That lame stunt pushed the hemp legalization back > 12 years
35 R.O.E.
1 to 3
SHIT OR GET OFF THE POT.
Reschedule from 1 to 3. I have said in the past that this would make a great T-shirt.
1 to 3
SHIT OR
GET OFF
THE POT
Manfor Mantis
@ Smokey Stover, you’re obviously very intelligent and passionate about this issue. Tell us, what can we do to strengthen our cause?
I personally do not consume cannabis because 1) my neighborhood is quite conservative and 2) well, it’s an illegal trade in the United States!
But, I want to change that. And I think you do, too. So, what’s the best strategy? We’ve already heard the worst strategy, thanks to your suggestions. But, flip the coin for us, if you will!
More Food for Thought
Our Bill of Rights, the first ten amendments of the United States Constitution, our very contract with our government employees curbs all three branches of government employees from acting as tyrants. It subjects all departments of government (our employees) to a rule of law and sets boundaries beyond which no official (employee) may go. It emphasizes that in this country a person walks with dignity and without fear or it’s government (employees), that people need not grovel before an all powerful government / the hired help.
The Constitution is not primarily designed to protect majorities, who are usually able to protect themselves, but rather it is designed to preserve and protect the rights of the individuals and minorities against arbitrary actions of those in authority – (our employees / hired help).
Every person who, (is an employee) under color of any statue, ordinance, regulation, custom, or usage thereof, of any state or territory, subjects or causes to be subjected, any citizen of the United States (employers) or other person to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the constitution and laws, shall be liable to the injured in an action at law, equity, or other proper proceeding for redress.
Therefore Government Agents Beware! To ALL and ANY of those in government jobs / hired or elected employees alike, you all are hereby given this public notice by at least one of your employers that your continuos unlawful behavior in the enforcement of the unconstitutional cannabis laws will hold you personally liable under U.S.C. Title 42 1983. Beware that a Class Action U.S.C. Title 42 1986 thru 1986 suit is being prepared at this time against all conspirators and co-conspirators who have acted and continue to create harmful injury by unlawfully abrogating the inalienable rights secured and retained by the United States People. Further Beware that “I’m just doing my job” statements will not protect you from being found liable under the Color of Law by a Jury of your Peers.
To my PEERS, fellow citizens it is time to act. It is time that we all start to put this government on notice. That if they can not pull their heads out of our ass we must do it ourselves. We must warn them that we can and will take each everyone of these agents of government to Court. We can act through our Courts and our peers will decided this issue not the government. It is time for each and everyone of you to start the process of putting this government on notice. After that we can attack this government in the Courts and they can do nothing to stop it. We are in control, the veil has been lifted, the wool pulled back from our eyes. It is time, It is time and we must not waste it. Each and everyone of us must push now, together we must push at the local and national levels. We are united and we have told no lies, it is the government that lacks foundation in this issue of cannabis. It is they who built this fraud upon one lie after another. It is time, so will you strike with me and the others who have suffered at the hands of these unlawful employees? Send them their notice and let the shit fly.
Stompedonmyrights, I absolutely will stand with you and will sign up for such a class action suit!
While a million-man march to plant seeds with brass shovels is nice and good, we MUST first exhaust the courts.
If we can only find remedy using those tools we’ve been endowed by our forefathers and foremothers!!! 🙂
Blessed be!
Awesome! This story has been all over the net lately.
It’s great to see a founder of one of the US hemp brands standing up for commerce like this.
The best way to show your support is by actually purchasing hemp and showing the nation that hemp should be legalized in the US.
Build on your strengths oh stoners of America
Paris Hilton smokes pot– and look at her..
I guess you couldn’t handle the idea of
a NORML/ DEA policy task force
that would compromise
the eternal conflict business
that animates the 420 nation
besides if pot & hemp laws
actually were reformed in the USA
NORML would, of course
have to disband
[Russ responds: Yes, just like after prohibition ended, the National Beer Wholesalers Association had to fold up… oh, wait, says here they formed in 1938, five years following the repeal of prohibition, and act as a very influential lobby representing the beer industry to this day. Why wouldn’t NORML, in a post-legal world, just become the National Organization for Relegalized Marijuana Lovers? Plus, we advocate for the sensible regulation of marijuana. Regulation means laws, which means there would still be marijuana laws, and some of them would be bad and in need of reforming, right?]
An observation: you are all the biggest obstacles to your own success, which probably has more to do with the stagnation of the issue than anything else…you spend more time arguing among yourselves, dividing and conquering your own best efforts in your self righteousness, than you do actually practicing anything that resembles unity, all the while as the pigs laugh all the way to the bank.
Another observation: you seem to think you can induce revolution without applying the revolt…and you wonder why you’ve been spinning your wheels and getting nowhere for how many decades? Seven, eight?
It seems that most people who reply in these comment sections want to pick and choose the parts that best suit their arguement, via patriotism, constitutionalism, religio-spiritualism etc etc ad nauseum….you want to quote a founding father, or an old document, or invoke your faith, but you do so while taking it outside of its context, or selectively-forgetting about the parts that do not apply to your position or which ran contrastingly.
the real world is not lollipops and rainbows, as most of you seem to think it will be from your safe anonymous shelters.
Not yet.
Maybe at one time it was (highly doubt it) or maybe someday it can be (again, highly doubt it) but you won’t get there with spitwad efforts and tough legal talk.
This fact has been historically proven so many times it shouldn’t even bear repeating.
If you want to make an omelet you are going to have to crack a few eggs.
The system has already learned that in order to keep a handful of dissidents down, all you have to do is crack a few skulls.
If you pay taxes, you already condone violence whther you realize it or not.
You already have the blood of many women and children on your hands, since the government has been using YOUR money to kill THEIR enemies in YOUR name…your failure to do anything to stop them sooner only means that you have been condoning their behavior all along…which means all of you anti-violent pacifistic types are the very epitome of panty-waist passive aggressiveness: too lazy to otherwise stop the nightmares performed in your name but too cowardly to pull the trigger yourselves…but still just as guilty as LBJ, Nixon, McCarthy, or both Bushes combined.
We seem to be the only society that thinks it can sit on its ass and change will just happen around us, and happen the way we want it to.
Every other group in the world has had to fight for its rights, but Americans are so fat and complacent that they think they are entitled to it without making any actual effort.
More like a society of lazy consumer egomaniacs being led by the elected culture of megalomaniacs.
It would seem that things are the way they are because we are perfectly made for each other.
Why don’t you just go all out soccermom; get a minivan, and do a four lane change at 80mph without a turn signal, stinking of gin with a cellphone shoved up your ass and four of someone elses’ kids in the back.
Like it or not, Smokie Stover makes a really valid point when he notes the fact that the planting of hempseed when it is not even the right time for it is a very empty effort.
You all are so eager for someone or something to call ‘hero’ that you are far too eager to overlook that these guys apparently also failed civil disobedience101.
At least it appears safe to say that apparently our cops are not the only ones who are too stupid to grasp basic botany.
You may not like the way Smokie delivers the message, but there is more to him that is right than wrong…and besides free speech protects the that language that you don’t want to hear. That’s the way it was supposed to work, not the other way around, since the other ‘speech’ is not what is in need of protecting.
I would be much more impressed to hear this story occuring in the Springtime, otherwise it just seems like some lame ass publicity stunt by a handful of hippies looking for some attention, which appears to have worked from the immediate assessment of just how many of you are now repeating their names like a mantra, all ready to go buy the products offered like good little consumer lemmings.
To the asshole who made comment #39: you’re a spineless jellyfish and argueably the worst kind of hypocrite that exists…the kind that masquerades as an ally while looking for any excuse to express your typical toothless two-faced internet tough guy cowardice.
Kind of like a Republican administration but without the authority.
Way to rise above, dipshit. Not.
Same thing applies to whatever stupid moderator it was that decided that allowing such a comment to be posted had anything to do with taking the moral high ground, or vindication of anything; all you did was stoop to the lower level by permitting it, thereby displaying your own ineptitude.
You took the bait, hook line and sinker, and probably grinned to yourself with a feeling of indignant satisfaction the whole time.
Millions of hippies on youtube? I personally wouldnt describe 15-35 yr olds as hippies. I think you are romanticizing the past by calling anyone who supports cannabis reform a hippy, especially in 2009. Your old nemesis has now morphed into your friends, neighbors, and coworkers so the lines are a bit blurred.
Our society will progress because of the open minds of the next generation, not because of the closed minds of the past. It has always been this way, and the open minds are in control now so brace yourself.
That is an ignorant and blatantly hypocritical thing to say.
By your logic, the only open minded people in the world belong to the ‘next generation’, whatever that means…apparently the same 15-35 year-old pill-popping ADHD crowd content with shooting up malls and schools, that now faces early diabetes and would never think to ride a bike without pads and a helmet.
If society will supposedly progress because of the open minds of the next generation, why has it not occurred in the last….four or five generations?
Our society has not progressed because of the closed minds of the past. It has always been this way.
Anyone older than 25 knows this, because they have watched it happen.
Not to mention that it is stupidity to even think that the entire generation is open minded, much the same as it is stupidity to think that everyone in this blog will one day agree with each other.
open minds of the next generation definitely have the potential to create change, the question is will they?
Historically speaking, the proof is that they will not because they are, generally speaking, ignorant to anything outside their immediate sphere of influences.
Also, it is not the ‘next generation’ that is trying to institute change, so much as the remnants of previous generations, who constantly find themselves held back by ‘the closed minds of the past’ as you put it.
Take a walk around a college campus sometime for a glimpse at the reality of things.
The ‘open minds’ are not in control of themselves, let alone anything else, and are very much affected by the decisions of the ‘closed minds’
As a side note: Hippy is a state of mind, not an age bracket, in the same context as say….’stoner’.
…and if you really think the ‘open minds are in control’….you better brace YOUR self.
All this was inspired by the principle–which is quite true in itself–that in the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility; because the broad masses of a nation are always more easily corrupted in the deeper strata of their emotional nature than consciously or voluntarily; and thus in the primitive simplicity of their minds they more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods. It would never come into their heads to fabricate colossal untruths, and they would not believe that others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously. Even though the facts which prove this to be so may be brought clearly to their minds, they will still doubt and waver and will continue to think that there may be some other explanation. For the grossly impudent lie always leaves traces behind it, even after it has been nailed down, a fact which is known to all expert liars in this world and to all who conspire together in the art of lying.
—Adolf Hitler , Mein Kampf, vol. I, ch. X[1]
Hemp prohibition illustrates the validity of that principle.
Personally I oppose the “legalization” of hemp because awarding it LEGAL status would, in effect, lend credibiltiy to it’s former ILLEGAL status. We can’t change history but when hemp is no longer banned the “powers that be” must acknowledge the fact that hemp should never have been illegal in the first place.
In a Journal of the American Dietetic Association study published in 2001…women who lost weight on a reduced-calorie plan that included meal replacement beverages maintained their losses after a year by drinking at least one diet shake a day in place of a regular meal. Their counterparts in the study…who lost weight on a conventional low-fat diet that did not use meal replacement beverages…regained most of their initial weight.
Police can tell the difference between a bagel and a doughnut. Hemp shouldn’t be that hard.